http://www.tricities.com/tristate/tr...6-03-0012.html
Drought conditions put local crops on the brink of disaster
Sunday, Jun 03, 2007 - 02:00 AM
ABINGDON ? Dust rolls up behind the tires of David Miller's truck as he drives, axle-high in brown grass, to a field of withering tobacco plants.
If it doesn't rain soon, he says, the drought could spell disaster for him and other area farmers.
"Most of the tobacco crop has just been set out in the last two weeks, and the next few days it's going to be critical if we don't get some rain," Miller said Thursday. "Everything's hanging on, but hanging on by a thread."
Miller is worried the whole crop will dry up before the tiny transplants have a chance to grow.
"There's not even any dew anymore in the mornings," he said. "In my lifetime, I can't remember it being this dry in the spring."
Miller isn't the only one who can't recall a drier spring ? it's shaping up to be the driest on record.
Last month was the driest May ever recorded at Tri-Cities Airport, and so far, it's been not only the driest spring, but also the driest year.
To date this year, the region has received less than half its normal rainfall.
In some places, even the weeds are turning brown.
According to University of Nebraska-Lincoln's U.S. Drought Monitor, Southwest Virginia is experiencing a moderate drought and Northeast Tennessee, a severe drought.
And it's likely to get worse.
"[Stream flow] normally gets lower as you get deeper and deeper into the summer," said Don Hayes, the surface water specialist for the Virginia Water Science Center. "I'd say it's fairly likely ... that you will have water supply problems."
Lately, Bristol's Beaver Creek has been at the lowest level on record for this time of year.
While the records don't include the stream level during the severe droughts of the early 1930s, they do include 50 years of data.
To help the dry conditions, not just any rain will do. It needs to be a real soaking rain.
"A lesser slow, steady rain would be more beneficial than a really intense two-inch rain," said Meteorologist Tom Wachs at News Channel 11.
"If we got a storm over us that sat and dropped two inches [very quickly], it really wouldn't do a lot of good ? it would just run off because it's so dry."
Hope may be in the forecast. Chief Meteorologist Mark Reynolds said a quarter-inch to a half-inch of rain is expected by the end of the weekend.
He said Sunday and Monday will have "the best rain chances we've seen in probably close to a month."
However, Reynolds said the type of weather pattern that would bring a long, steady, soaking rain is not on the immediate horizon.
The rain in the forecast may be enough to help keep recently planted crops growing, but for some farmers the damage has already been done.
This year's first cutting of hay was half the yield of last year's crop, and there might not be a second cutting.
"I've even got farmers talking about reducing livestock numbers," said Wayne Campbell, manager of the Russell County Cooperative. "The availability of grass is not there. And of course, I've been scrambling this morning trying to make some contacts, looking for availability of hay shipped in out of the Midwest or out of the West, but ... I don't have anything in concrete as of yet."
Campbell said it will take an extra tractor-trailer load of hay to feed his 130 head of beef cattle, at a cost of about $4,200 ? nearly three times what it would normally cost to raise the same amount of hay locally.
The drought may also affect beef producers with lower than normal prices if the market is flooded with animals sold off to reduce herd size in response to the drought.
Washington County Extension Agent Phil Blevins said the dry weather is likely to affect many farmers' bottom line.
"What I've always thought for people who don't farm, for them to get a perspective on how weather affects agriculture, if they could just imagine their salary every year dependent on what the weather did, and if the weather cut their salary 25 percent, how would they deal with that and how would they feel about that," Blevins said. "I hope by the time this gets in the paper it's not an issue anymore."
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